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Bangladesh building toll rises to 348 amid six arrests

Miraculously another 29 are found alive Saturday but searchers say survivors’ voices are getting weaker. Meanwhile, six people are detained for questioning.

Hopes fade for distraught relatives waiting for news of loved ones as the death toll rises in Bangladesh's deadliest industrial disaster.(AFP)

By Julhas Alam and Farid HossainAssociated Press

Sat., April 27, 2013

SAVAR, BANGLADESH—Bangladeshi police took six people into custody in connection with the collapse of a shoddily constructed building that killed at least 348 people, as rescue workers admitted Saturday that voices of survivors are getting weaker after four days of being pinned under the increasingly unstable rubble.

Still, in a boost for the rescuers, 29 survivors were pulled out Saturday, said army spokesman Shahinul Islam.

Most victims were crushed by massive blocks of concrete and mortar falling on them when the eight-storey structure came down on Wednesday morning — a time many of the garment factories that leased space in the building were packed with workers.

It was the worst tragedy to hit Bangladesh’s massive garment industry and focused attention on the poor working conditions of the employees who toil for $38 a month to produce clothing for top international brands.

Among those arrested Saturday were two owners of a garment factory. A Dhaka court ruled they can be questioned by police for 12 days without charges being filed.

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Also detained are two government engineers and the wife of the building owner — who is on the run — in an attempt to force him to surrender. Late Saturday, police arrested another factory owner.

A girl cries for her missing mother at the site of the garment building factory that collapsed Wednesday in Bangladesh. Police in Bangladesh took five people into custody in connection with the collapse of a shoddily-constructed building this week, as rescue workers pulled 19 survivors out of the rubble on Saturday and vowed to continue as long as necessary to find others despite fading hopes. (Wong Maye-E / AP)

Relatives mourn for missing garment workers in front of the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, in Savar. (ANDREW BIRAJ / REUTERS)

Rescue workers carry a garment worker, who was pulled alive Saturday from the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, in Savar, 30 from Dhaka, Bangladesh. (REUTERS)

Relatives of a dead garment factory worker are overwhelmed after seeing the body three days after the eight-storey building where she worked collapsed. (MUNIR UZ ZAMAN / AFP/Getty Images)

Working round-the-clock since Wednesday through heat and a thunderstorm, rescuers finally reached the ground floor Saturday from the top of the mountainous rubble through 25 narrow holes they have drilled, said Brig. Gen. Ali Ahmed Khan, the head of the fire services.

“We are still getting response from survivors though they are becoming weaker slowly,” he said, noting rescue workers could now see cars parked at ground level. “The building is very vulnerable. Any time the floors could collapse. We are performing an impossible task, but we are glad that we are able to rescue so many survivors.”

He said the operations will continue overnight as chances fade of people surviving for a fifth day with possibly grievous injuries and the heat.

The building site was a hive of frenzied activity all day with soldiers, police and medical workers in lab coats working non-stop. Rescuers passed bottles of water and small cylinders of oxygen up a ladder leaning against the side of the building to be given to possible survivors inside.

They used bare hands and shovels, passing chunks of brick and concrete down a human chain away from the collapsed structure.

Nearby, Abul Basar wept as he awaited news of his wife, who worked in one of the garment factories. “My son says that his mother will come back some day. She must return!” he cried.

Every once in a while a badly decomposed body would be brought out, covered in cloth and plastic, to a spot where ambulances were parked. Workers furiously sprayed air-fresheners on the bodies to cover the stench.

The bodies were kept at a makeshift morgue at the nearby Adharchandra High School before being handed over to families. Many people milled around at the school, waving photos of their missing loved ones.

Junior local government minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak put the death toll at 348. Military spokesman Shahinul Islam said 2,429 survivors were accounted for, including 29 who were pulled out Saturday.

Junior Home Minister Shamsul Haque Tuku said police had arrested Bazlus Samad, managing director of New Wave Apparels Ltd., and Mahmudur Rahman Tapash, the company chairman. He told reporters that police had also detained the wife of Mohammed Sohel Rana, the owner of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, for questioning. The top three floors of the building had been illegally constructed without permits.

Authorities are still searching for Rana, a local politician, who hasn’t been seen publicly since the building collapsed. Negligence cases have been filed against him. Police in Bangladesh often detain relatives of missing suspects as a way to pressure them to surrender.

Dhaka police Supt. Habibur Rahman said Rana was a local leader of ruling Awami League’s youth front. His arrest, and that of the factory owners, was ordered by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is also the Awami League leader.

Police said they detained Imtemam Hossain and Alam Ali, two engineers working for the Savar municipality, for questioning. They did not say what role they played in approving the design of the building but it was clear that the arrests amounted to a widening crackdown. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

A garment manufacturers’ group said the factories in the building employed 3,122 workers, but it was not clear how many were inside it when it collapsed.

Loblaw Inc. was one of the customers of the factories operating in the building, which provide products for Canadian giant’s Joe Fresh subsidiary.

Loblaw said Friday it was sending senior company officials to Bangladesh to meet with local officials to determine exactly what caused the tragedy and to offer assistance.

Police say they ordered an evacuation of the building on Tuesday after cracks in Rana Plaza were found, but the factories ignored the order and were operating when it collapsed the next day. Video before the collapse shows cracks in walls, with apparent attempts at repair. It also shows columns missing chunks of concrete and police talking to building operators.

Officials said soon after the collapse that numerous construction regulations had been violated.

The disaster is the worst ever for the country’s booming and powerful garment industry, surpassing a fire five months ago that killed 112 people and brought widespread pledges to improve worker-safety standards. Since then, very little has changed in Bangladesh, where low wages have made it a magnet for numerous global brands.

Bangladesh’s garment industry was the third largest in the world in 2011, after China and Italy, having grown rapidly in the past decade. The country’s minimum wage is the equivalent of about $38 a month.

Among the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac, Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms. Altogether, they produced several million shirts, pants and other garments a year.

The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for several major North American and European retailers.

Britain’s Primark acknowledged it was using a factory in Rana Plaza, but many other retailers distanced themselves from the disaster, saying they were not involved with the factories at the time of the collapse or had not recently ordered garments from them.

Walmart said none of its clothing had been authorized to be made in the facility, but it is investigating whether there was any unauthorized production.

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